So I've been "working" on this a while. A good old-fashioned fix fic, built on... you can guess. A few days ago, I realized I wasn't far from a contiguous, if not coherent, half-story. (I say "half"; going over my outline, it'll have to be in three parts to have any semblance of pacing.) Since I've been going at it on and off for the past two years, I thought actually posting something might motivate me to finish the rest. If you must respond, be savage. Please.

She ran out of the dressing room, a shopping bag in one arm. Shoes! I need new shoes, she thought.

"Oh, hey - it's the short-haired beauty!" he said as he turned to her.

"Uh... so you're here with Layla?"

"Welll... I think we might've broken up again. Apparently I need to learn to kiss better." A smile came to his lips, as the ramifications of his "apparent" breakup with Layla seemed to sink in. "Sayyy..."

She wanted to. She didn't know why, but she wanted to. But she didn't want to want to. She wasn't ready, that much she knew. I'm gay! she tried to blurt out. A week or two ago, she'd have thought it true. But she couldn't. The best she could do was: "I don't kiss boys!"

Kade came closer. "Ever tried?"

At that he paused. She could tell he wasn't going to ask directly, but she could also tell he didn't want to feel he was forcing her. He wanted to give her an opportunity to back out. Part of her wanted to take it, and part of her didn't; as those two parts of her fought, she felt his finger on her chin.

****

A particular ginger human clasped her arms for dear life at the top of the chest of a wolfgirl ostensibly in her care, running as fast as preternatural lycan legs could carry the two of them. Brooke took up the rear, hissing at pursuers she was certain were long gone. Another hundred meters and they could regroup.

When Brooke was safely out of sight, Ace stopped, Twigitt still holding on. Only when Twigitt saw Brooke walk back, human, haggard, barely covered by her torn shirt, did she know it was probably safe to let go. Ace must have had the same thought, becoming human again, already ill-fitting boys' clothes torn in the worst places by lycan stature sitting loosely on the body of a teenage girl.

Twigitt looked over the two panting teens, harrowed and practically naked in the wilderness.

"Well - that was fun!" she "exclaimed" in the antithesis of a stage whisper, exuberant timbre hiding a low objective volume. Her companions glared at her.

"And don't worry, Ace. I'll have you back, just like last time."

"You had nothing to do wi-!" screamed Brooke, until the echo made her remember their situation. "You had nothing to do with that. Either of them."

"Well, I helped us better understand what did happen."

"...let's just go," came Ace's voice.

"He's..." Brooke trailed off before continuing, "he's right. We're still not safe here, even in human form. We need to find somewhere to get... er... changed."

Ace nodded. "Right. Let's go."

Twigitt moved closer to Ace. "I want you to know, I am confident. Think of what happened last time as proof-of-concept, even if I wasn't directly involved."

Ace gave a nervous laugh. "Professor, your track record..." The smile the laugh had birthed became one aggressive in its overt dishonesty. "Please don't."

Once that was said, Brooke saw the malice fade from Ace's smile, and it became to her eyes sorrowful. Brooke put an arm around her friend.

Ace's expression did not change except for a brief downward glance that caused Brooke to realize that raising her arm had exposed her loins. She quickly withdrew it, and Ace looked into her eyes, the sad smile becoming a more neutral expression, which somehow to Brooke looked happier. "It's still not safe, Brooke. We better get somewhere that is."

Twigitt, it turned out, had been suspiciously prepared for this eventuality - at least, the eventuality of the three of them needing a safehouse. The safehouse was a street or two from the edge of the woods, the loft of an apothecary's in a row of quaint little shops. It was just far enough that their pursuers, had they tracked them this far, would be lost in the chaotic residues of daytime foot traffic, and just crowded enough to make the search impractical, but neither to such an extent that this far that this late the three couldn't make a sprint for the door in relative safety and ignominy.

As for the other eventuality that had come to light that night, however, while the safehouse was stocked with spare clothes, there were only girls' clothes in Brooke's size and boys' in what had been Ace's. It was fortunate that Twigitt, presumably in an effort to pretend that this safehouse had been prepared for general emergencies and not that particular night going haywire, had stocked multiples of each (and no others). Twigitt played innocent as she got them out.

"I don't have anything in your size, Ace - I hope you understand."

"...rather well," Ace said.

"Great!" said Twigitt.

Brooke quietly went off to dress in the bathroom, leaving Ace the bedroom. She spent a good five minutes in the bathroom fully dressed, waiting to hear a stirring that told her Ace had gone back to the main room before leaving. Brooke reentered the main room quick on Ace's heels to find Twigitt waiting for them.

Mr. Wolfhart looked out his window as Twigitt drove up and saw a girl - his daughter - exit the car in ill-fitting clothing. He tilted his head in puzzlement, at the same time, smiling at the fact he had his little Acina back. He watched his daughter walk down the path, shaking slightly, and went to the door to greet her.

Professor Twigitt, seeing a wolf open the door, rolled down the passenger window to wave. Ace's father waved back, hiding slightly behind the door. It was indeed irrational, inasmuch as given all the times moon madness had led him to throw caution to the wind, anyone who might give a damn must have already known. Still, he didn't step out all the way.

"Come in, come in," he bellowed; "come on, the neighbors," he said in a stage whisper.

Ace at that stepped a bit faster, entering the Wolfharts' home, and the elder Wolfhart closed the door. Wolfhart turned to his daughter with a smile.

"So... I see you changed your mind."

"It... wasn't exactly my decision..."

"What happened?"

"...Twigitt's friends... I don't know... they aimed something at Brooke and me, and the next thing I know, we were running through the woods, she was all snakey, and I was..."

Ace gave a brief look straight down.

"Will you stay this way?" asked Mr. Wolfhart.

"I... I don't know. Twigitt says she'll work on it, but honestly, I... well... I just don't know."

"Hey... you don't have to know," said Mr. Wolfhart with a smile that made Ace wince slightly. He pulled his Acina into an embrace.

"...thanks."

The next morning, a Friday, Brooke woke up to her alarm. Instinctively, she checked her phone: a text from her girlfriend - "Are you awake?" - long after she'd fallen asleep. Apologies would be forthcoming.

As she stepped into the shower, her thoughts suddenly turned to Ace, waking up in a body so alien. She thought of the first time she'd slept at someone else's house, and immediately put it out of her head as an absurdly petty comparison. But Ace... he must be...

Shock it must have remained, it couldn't have been to Ace what it had been that first night, she told herself. That first night... she shivered.

As she showered, her thoughts involuntarily turned back to Layla's slumber party, her body and Ace's... well, current body... in full view of one another, and her thoughts again turned to that awkward first night those months ago. Some time sooner, his body would have been new to him as to her. For her to see... even that body in the mirror, let alone if she had been... eurgh. She shuddered, nicking her leg.

But he must be doing all right. Every morning... "tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow..." for however many weeks it was... and now... but he must be doing all right. He had indeed done this "tango" before, and that time it had seemed fairly likely it would be for life. This time, they knew better.

At school that morning, Kade stood in the hall, a particular fairy standing against him, making circles on his chest. "You'll meet me tonight, won't you?"

"Of course."

"No annoying jiniri who might have gotten in our way?"

Kade smirked. "I couldn't say. Would such a being have a name?"

Cessily have his chest a light punch, a badly-hidden smirk belying her feigned indignation.
"You've already made plans with her, haven't you?"

"No, but everything I know of you two tells me that she's right behind me."

"Bite your tongue!" said Cessily, even as Kade turned his head to see Laura, her head brightly aflame.

"If you don't want to bite your tongue, how about I lick your teeth?" asked Laura, no hint of kindness in her expression, a torch made of her hand. She pressed her hand to his face, causing him to recoil with a high whimper. Lighting her other hand, she turned to Cessily. "Just makes you melt, doesn't he?" she asked, running her torch-hands up and down in the air surrounding her friend's body.

"Cool it," said Cessily, grabbing one of Laura's hands in both her own, covering it in a frost that quickly killed the flame. The frost ran up her arm, over her head, putting out the flame there as well, and down her other arm, her legs, her entire body. When the frost radiating from Laura's hand had actually begun to cause her to shiver, Cessily let it go.

Kade watched all this in an amorous amusement. There had been a time when Laura cooking Cessily would have been enough to prompt his intervention, but he'd long since learned better than to get involved in their shenanigans. Harrowing enough to be involved with them, without getting involved between them. Once Laura had rubbed her hands a bit, both girls turned to him with daggers in their eyes.

The question in their eyes, the one Kade had heard so many times over the past few months, didn't need to be asked, so they didn't ask it. They simply stared at him, daring him to take note as he stubbornly pretended they were still fighting. When it had become obvious to all that it was now indeed obvious to all that it had long been obvious to all the tension in the silence, Kade narrowed his eyes in a wordless acknowledgment of the unspoken ultimatum. It was another twenty seconds or so before the girls broke the silence in unison.

"Well?!"

Kade found his answer - and the escape he'd been looking for - in a familiar short-haired beauty in the distance. "Just a moment, girls."

"Uh... hi, Kade," said Ace, hoping Kade would remember what he'd found out the hard way the last time they'd flirted like this.

"...it might!" said Ace, in a not-at-all verisimilar tone that only caused Kade to laugh a bit more.

"Are you expecting it?"

"...no." Ace took a deep breath, heart a thousand beats per minute. "You do realize who I am, right?"

"Of course I do, Ace."

"And... and that doesn't bother you?"

"Why would it? You're a girl now, aren't you?"

"Yes..."

"And for the foreseeable future?"

Ace paused again. "...foreseeable, yeah."

"Then I don't mind. (Not like that doodyhead Ash.) I know you. I like you, both of you. And you - you're beautiful."

This time, it was Ace who drew Kade into a kiss, if only to beat him to it. It was Ace who broke the kiss, as well.

"Well, well," said Kade. "I'll see you tonight."

"S-sure," said Ace. "Where?"

"That swimsuit from the mall - do you still have it?"

Ace smirked. "I thought cats hated water."

"Call it an acquired taste."

Ace fidgeted with a sleeve. "Where?"

"The lake? Let's say four-thirty"

"In April?"

Kade laughed. "Sure, why not? High of seventeen tomorrow, and it'll be six or so before it really starts to cool; I've been down in much colder weather."

Ace smiled and shrugged. "I might as well."

With that, Kade headed for some faraway room he probably had to be in, pointedly ignoring the rage smoldering and sublimating in his wake, a wake whose foam couldn't help but find Ace's shores. Cessily marched up first.

"So," said the fairy.

"S-so what?"

"So Kade would rather have a boy than either of us."

"I'm not... really... a boy, anymore..."

"Oh, don't give me that."

Laura tapped her on the shoulder. "Come on... he's not worth it. He'll be back soon enough. And even if he isn't... we're both better than he is."

Cessily looked into Ace's eyes. "You're right."

The two of them went off together, Laura giving Ace a dirty look just in case her intent had been misconstrued.

Ace must have forgotten that Twigitt had been planning to spend that afternoon poking and prodding both Ace and, as a control, Brooke, to see what had happened and how perhaps to reverse it. The alternative, that Ace might have genuinely thought Twigitt would have been satisfied within an hour, was too absurd to contemplate. Nonetheless, when the clock struck four, Brooke heard her fellow test subject's voice.

"Will this take much longer? I sort of have a date."

I can't have heard that right, thought Brooke. "Yes. Yes, it will," she said, beating Twigitt to the punch.

"It will," said Twigitt. "If you don't think you can stay..."

"Never mind that - a date?"

Ace nodded, avoiding Brooke's gaze. "Kade."

"Kade?!"

"Yeah. Kade," Ace replied to Brooke's exclamation.

"Why Kade?" asked Brooke.

"What's wrong with Kade?" asked Ace in response.

"He's Kade!" said Brooke. "You lectured me on Kade, remember?" She waited for some reaction from Ace, and getting none, continued. "Look - you know what he wants."

"Maybe."

"No 'maybe' about it! Ask Laura. Ask Cessily. Ask the football team."

"And Layla?"

"Layla knew - knows - how to play with fire without getting burnt. Trust me. She doesn't count."

"Laura can't play with fire?" Ace asked with a grin.

"You know what I mean. You know what you're getting into."

They stood in silence for a moment before Ace spoke, if only to cut off Twigitt. "M-maybe that's what I want?"

"Actually... kids?" said Twigitt, "it's not a big deal, really. You can both come in for a few hours tomorrow, right?"

"I actually had plans with my girlfriend pretty much all day tomorrow... and Sunday," Brooke lied, hoping to twist the screws on Ace. She'd maybe had some vague intention to meet up with her, but she felt obligated to call attention to the stupidity and thoughtlessness Ace was proudly holding up on display.

"Okay, that's fine," said Twigitt, "from what I've seen so far, Wolfhart is more or less stable, so we can all start fresh on Monday. Enjoy your weekend!"

Brooke watched through narrowed eyes as Ace walked out ahead of her. Once certain they were no longer within earshot of one another, Brooke sighed, to no obvious reaction from the professor. Well, she thought, I guess now I should actually make plans...

An hour or so later, Kade treaded water, waiting for his date on the beach to join him. The halting creep Ace employed to this end was so delectably cute, Kade's urge to shout "just dash in - it'll be over faster" found itself swiftly and deeply buried. The beautiful hesitancy had to end eventually, however, and it did so when the water level reached hip deep, its swift climb up Ace's swimsuit prompting a shriek and a mad dash for the shore.

Kade swam after his date, who now displayed a captivating shiver of adorable agony. Once he got close, Ace grabbed onto him for warmth, only to jump back with a yelp.

"You're colder than I am!"

"It's only skin deep," said Kade, reaching for Ace's hand, which was offered. He took it in both his own, warming them to a point of equilibrium. Seeing a smile, Kade gave Ace a kiss, which he could see was not unwelcome. He put his arms around Ace, who embraced him in return.

At that question, Ace leaned forward slightly. Kade leaned forward so that they could look each other in the eye. "Ace?"

There was no reply, but Kade noticed that Ace's arm was shaking slightly, and softly placed a hand on it. Ace jerked slightly, and then placed a hand on Kade's. Kade let go of the arm he was holding, but Ace then only grabbed Kade's hand more tightly. Kade brought his other hand up, taking Ace's hand in both his own, raising his eyes for their gazes to meet. They kissed again.

Ace drew Kade into an embrace and pulled him down to the blanket. Kade ran the fingers of his left hand through Ace's short hair as his own locks flowed over both their faces, and Ace's hands, with the barest consciousness attached, made their way down Kade's back. Kade, in turn, found himself running his right hand along Ace's body, bringing it to rest on the fat of the hip. As he lifted his left hand, he broke from the kiss to quickly look around the empty beach, freezing at the sound of Ace's voice. "Wait."

"Hmm?"

"You didn't answer my question."

Kade looked up for a moment, lost in thought. "I guess... you're the one that got away."

Ace smirked. "Wasn't that Layla?"

"Her too, 'natch. But that day we first kissed..." he sighed.

"The day you went to bed a little curvier?"

"Yeah. I gotta admit, the missed shot wasn't first on my mind at the time. But when Chloe turned me back, I thought back to that day, and I found I didn't regret being transformed - I could have lived with that, but I kept thinking about you."

The smirk faded from Ace's face to become a faint gasp on a face clearly lost in thought; within seconds, however, it returned with a newfound vindictiveness. "I'm sorry, Kade... that's BS."

Kade propped himself up with a jump. "What?"

"You 'kept thinking of me'? While you were running around with everyone from Laura and Cessily to that Milligan human?"

Kade bit his lip. "Well, maybe that was an exaggeration."

"Yep."

"But it is true that when I saw you, it triggered something I'd... let myself forget."

Ace rose to meet Kade, smirk lost to a flat mouth of exasperated aggravation. "So your backtrack is 'yeah, what I just said, minus the thing I just got called out on'?"

Kade discovered a sudden overwhelming itch on the back of his neck. "If, ah, if you want to put it that way."

A few moments passed of silent recrimination before Ace, breaking into a laugh, embraced him again. "I'll take it."

Monday morning, as the sun-tolerant students shuffled in to join the ghouls and vampires, Kade sought out his short-haired beauty, on whose shoulder he placed an arm. Ace turned and, seeing who it was, gave a warm smile, putting a hand on his back. Together they walked into the school.

Two of the first people to "greet" them were to be Laura and Cessily, their motions appearing somehow synchronized. "Hi, Kade," they chirped in unison.

"Uh, hi," he responded, pulling Ace slightly closer to himself.

"Hi, Ace," they said again in unison, an octave lower. Ace waved.

"So, Kade, how was your weekend?" asked Cessily.

"Awesome, thanks," he responded without missing a beat.

"Any plans for tonight?" she asked.

"Homework, mostly."

"And for Friday?" asked Laura.

"I don't know... do we?" he responded, turning to Ace.

Ace blushed. "I... I don't know..."

"Well," said Kade, turning back to Laura, "I'm sure we can think of something."

"So you would rather have a boy?!" Laura snapped at him. "Fine then!" She turned her back.

"Fine!" Cessily echoed, turning her back as well.

Kade laughed. "All right."

"Fine," the fairy and ifrit said again in unison.

"Fine," said Kade again, and he and Ace walked off, Ace's gaze fixed on the pair of them, but Kade's fixed forward. By the time the two turned around for another go, Kade and Ace were long gone.

Once they were out of earshot, Ace turned to Kade. "What is with those two?"

Kade sighed. "I respect them - I just can't respect how screwed-up they are."

"But, y'know, isn't that what got you..." Ace paused. Kade decided to interrupt rather than wait for a replacement to whatever word it was Ace was holding back: "I know, I know." He let out a slight wince as he silently chastised himself for his dismissive tone. "I do know."

Kade racked his brain for a justification for his exploitation of whatever it had been going on between the three of them and came up blank, quietly thanking Bast when Twigitt's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Eureka!"

"Eureka?" asked Ace.

Stopping just short of contact, Twigitt put a finger to Ace's upper chest. "No - 'eurekas,'" and turning the finger to herself, "eureka!"

"What?" Kade asked, with Ace following just as he'd gotten the word out.

"Don't they teach you kids anything?" she asked. "Well, grammar can wait. For now, we've still got to turn you into a boy."

"...now?" Ace asked, clinging slightly more tightly to Kade.

Twigitt shrugged. "Well, no, not now. I'm not quite ready, and it'll take an hour or so when I am. Tomorrow after school?"

Ace's gaze flicked up to Kade, whose face showed only a likely enforced neutrality, and back to Twigitt. "Sure. We'll see you then."

Twigitt shrugged and went off to whatever insidious plot was on her schedule that day.

Ace looked up at Kade with a forced smile. "So... tonight... want to work on our homework together?"

Kade replied, "sure, why not," in exactly the same tone.

"Y-your place or mine?"

Kade smiled. "You pick."

"Mine," Ace said.

"Okay," said Kade, putting a soft kiss on Ace's forehead.

Mine - a single, hasty word Ace would fear and regret for the remainder of the schoolday. When the day was done, however, Ace and Kade walked to the former's home together. Mr. Wolfhart greeted them behind the door. "So you're Kade! Come in, come in."
Kade shivered a bit as he followed Ace into the wolf's domain. The three of them sat, Kade and Ace consciously separated on a couch, Mr. Wolfhart lounging across an easy chair.

"So you're the one my little Acina's brought home?" he asked with a disarming smile.

Kade lay back to reciprocate the wolf's ease. "Yep, that'd be me," even as he heard Ace whisper, "Acina..."

Wolfhart propped himself up to look Kade over. The catboy's enforced ease had caused his ears to fur out, and he gave off the smell of prey. "What happened to that Brooke girl?"

"She dumped me... months ago. She's with someone else now." Ace crumpled as Kade looked on in concern. "Besides, I don't like girls anymore, Dad. I thought I told you that before."

Wolfhart nodded. "Rings a bell. Sorry, 'cina - I'd forgotten."

Ace jumped at the appellation "'cina," mouthing it silently. Kade moved closer, and Ace fell onto his shoulder. Seeing Wolfhart had not reacted, Kade raised a hand to Ace's far shoulder. At that, Wolfhart sat up with a glare.

"So what are your plans for tonight?"

"Homework, mainly," said Kade.

"Mainly?"

"Entirely," he said, pulling Ace closer.

After a pause, Wolfhart said: "The computer room's at the end of the main hall. We don't close the door."

Ace did most of the work, though it turned out Kade was a significantly better typist, so after a fashion he was the one seated at the computer. Ace would pour through their books, keeping notes where per instructions they were to work separately to help them fake it. Kade printed out a copy for himself, and left the rest for Ace to adapt. With a peck on the cheek, he left, not meeting Mr. Wolfhart's gaze as they passed.

The next day was quiet. Kade was keenly aware that in a few short hours his new girlfriend would be a boy, and therefore on this last day vowed to keep her as close as possible. Ace seemed to sympathize with this endeavor, and so the two of them seemed almost a single entity to the extent their schedules would allow. When they shared a class, their desks would be pressed together; when they didn't, they would silently chart courses through the halls to meet. Between classes, they moved like some unfathomable four-legged, two-headed abomination, having modeled their movements on a student of that description.

Brooke came across them at one point, walking a half-meter from her own girlfriend. She tutted, prompting Ace to rub a hand across Kade's chest. This prompted her to latch tightly onto her girlfriend's hand, which in turn prompted a look from her that, filled though it was with love, all but visibly projected the word "really?" She continued walking, her girlfriend keeping pace only after, with a laugh, forcibly breaking her grip.

Laura and Cessily, to their credit, ignored them so well Kade could almost believe it unrehearsed.

The end of the day came, and it was time to go to Twigitt's lab. Kade and Ace shared one last sloppy kiss.

"So, how was kissing boys?" asked Kade.

Ace blushed. "I might try it again someday."

Kade chuckled, feeling the pieces of a rejoinder lay there, but all he could come up with was a last peck on Ace's cheek. "Have fun, then." Despite what he'd told Twigitt, he felt less than no need to stick around for this, so he and Ace went their separate ways.

Before long, Twigitt had Ace strapped to a gurney, machinery whirring all around the two of them. Brooke, whom Twigitt had invited for a practical lesson in her continuing mission to create a Renaissance reptile, sat off in one corner, arms folded on the skirt the professor had insisted she wear. Motors creaked, coolant bubbled, and Tesla coils crackled all utterly without necessity as Ace's body was lifted toward a ring producing a field of... something, something whitish purple.

"What is that?" Ace asked.

Twigitt responded, "it's a sort of ethereal sealant, intended to undo the effect of the accelerant from before. It won't turn you back in and of itself, but it will make it a much easier fix - basically, it's like your girl form, even suppressed, was malignant, and this'll make it benign."

"Um... and you have a way to turn me back?"

"Well, no, not yet."'

"You told me you..."

Brooke interrupted. "Wait, professor, shouldn't it be bluer?"

Twigitt looked at the ring. With a muted exclamation of "dammit," she pulled a switch. The field was up to Ace's nose when it suddenly became an expanse of clear air. The straps of the gurney came loose at once, dropping Ace to the floor in a heap. "Ow..."

"Sorry, Ace, but I had to. That would have... well, the effects could have been extremely interesting, but on school grounds would also have had an extremely good chance of getting me fired. And you'll sleep better not knowing what that would mean at Charybdis for my race."

"'Sfine," said Ace, nursing a bruised head, fur going in and out from adrenaline. "'lljstgo..."

"'Kay." As Ace left, Brooke saw tears of pain running down both cheeks.

With that, Twigitt and Brooke began the inspection of the machine. Brooke saw a pretty good hint at the problem almost immediately: two screws, lying on the floor. She picked them up, and was about to call Twigitt's attention to them when she noticed what looked like shavings of keratin stuck to the head of each. The suspicion this raised in her head was quickly confirmed when she noticed on one what looked like some kind of animal hair.

She turned to Twigitt, shifting her balance from foot to foot. "Could I, er, step out for a second?"

"Sure, go ahead."

She found Ace in the hall, head in hands, sobbing.

"Your little stunt could have gotten you killed, you know," Brooke said.

"I know."

"What were you thinking?"

"I guess I wasn't."

"I'll say you weren't. Are you really that hot for Kade?"

To that Ace gave a gasping laugh that degenerated into a cough. "You think, you think it's about Kade?"

"No. What. Could have. Possibly. Given me that impression."

Ace shrugged. "I have been all over him, haven't I?" There was a moment of silence between them as gears seemed to visibly turn in Ace's head. "I guess it's just... asserting myself?"

"I've been in limbo for the past few months, somewhere in his brain. I thought I was him, but... well... I think I was at first, but somewhere, somehow, I was born! And I died! I died, and I didn't even notice. Dead and he never - because when he was me, I wasn't... hadn't..."

"You're not making sense."

"I know, I know I'm not, but..." Ace sighed. "All I'm sure of is that the boy hiding somewhere in my mind isn't me. And I can't let him replace me. Not again. Not anymore."

Brooke put a hand on Ace's shoulder, and Ace turned to her. Brooke was taken aback by the redness of Ace's eyes and the fear on her face. Still, she couldn't shake the thought that this girl was an impostor. It took Brooke some time to speak, but the memory of their past relationship tipped the scales just enough for her to say, in a remorseful stutter, "h-he was here first."

"I know." Ace looked Brooke square in the eyes. "But I'm here now, and I'm not going to just crawl back into his mind." With that, Ace turned her head.

Brooke bit her lip, then sighed. "Should I tell Twigitt, or would you rather yourself?"

"Neither. She doesn't need to know."

"You think she's just going to give up?"

"...I don't care."

"If she keeps trying turn you back, she'll succeed, won't she? If that's 'dying,' is that how you'd rather die?"

"I don't know. I don't want to think about it."

"You're going to have to."

Ace didn't respond to that, but just stood up. She turned to Brooke, trying to come up with something to say, but decided that Brooke would probably best understand her intent if she said nothing, so she turned away and left without a word. The mall, then home.

Arriving at the underground mall, she made a beeline for a familiar store. Passing Layla's little human bestie, she headed for the shoes. She still did need new shoes. However, a familiar face caused her to freeze in her tracks.

That clerk, the druggie. She'd been stoned out of her mind the last time Ace - at least, this Ace - had been there, but in a way, so had Ace herself. The high of self-realization could be as intoxicating as any drug, some of Cessily's family might be quick to tell, and Ace's lips that day had been a waterfall. Damn, what had she told her? Her probing came up empty, just a blur of organic intoxication. She quivered.

"Can I help you, miss?" asked the clerk.

"No... no, I'm fine," said Ace with a blank stare that she mused must have had the clerk wondering what she was on. If that was what the clerk was thinking, it couldn't have done much to dissuade her heading straight for the door without a further glance. Despite herself, she would leave the mall empty-handed.

As she arrived home, she tried to plot a course to her bedroom to stay as well clear of her father as she could, but of course it was no time at all before she heard his booming voice. "Why, hello there! And how was my little Acina's day?"

Ace did not turn, but only clenched her hands into fists. "Dad, stop. You have a daughter named Ace. Not Acina. Her name is Ace." Now turning, she looked into her father's eyes. "I'm your daughter, and my name is Ace."

"Well, no, I..." Ace rubbed her arm. "I sabotaged it." At this Kade perked up briefly, which caused the smile to return to Ace's face, but he soon returned to his flat stare. Nonetheless Ace maintained her hopeful smile.

Ace could see the wheels turning in Kade's head for a moment until he settled on a single word: "why?"

Ace let out a slight laugh. "Now why would you ask me that?"

Kade glanced around the corridor. "Um, I guess... it's a weird thing to do? In your situation?"

Ace smiled up at Kade. "I don't think I can answer that. Not to... I'm sorry. I can't explain."

Kade shifted his weight to put a tiny extra distance between them. With a sigh, Ace began to speak again.

"Thinking about what Brooke said, part of me feels that... he was here first. I feel like he deserves what I have more than I do." She perked up. "But he can't haaave it!" she half-sang with a broad smile, a tear running down her cheek.

"Because of me?" Kade asked.

"Not for you!" She shouted, causing Kade to reel slightly at the apparent escalation.

Ace bit her lip. Kade ran his eyes over her face for cues before saying, "I don't know. I... I just wouldn't be able to get the idea out of my head. I guess that's on me. Sorry, Ace." He turned and walked off without a word. Ace snarled.

From somewhere, Brooke walked up to Ace. "So now will you drop it?"

Ace's snarl turned into a slight growl. "Hell no."

"What?"

"Tell Twigitt I'm not going back, Brooke." Fur began to climb her right arm. "Not in a hundred years."

Brooke took a few steps back. "Ace, what brought this on?"

Ace turned, her uniform on the brink of tearing as fur covered her from head to toe. "You!"

"Me?" Brooke asked. She had half a mind to transform herself out of fear of this side of Ace.

Brooke shrugged as Ace growled. The wolf-woman turned and made a sprint down the hallway. She kept going out the door and off into the distance.

"Maybe I shouldn't have let her..." Brooke said to no one in particular, trailing off. From somewhere came Cessily's voice: "she'll be fine."

Ace continued running out through Thornhill, as any human who saw the enraged lycan monster in a schoolgirl uniform scattered. She found her way into the countryside, through twenty kilometers of wood before finally deciding she could run no more and falling flat on her face, barely noticing her own transformation to human form as she landed.

"Dammit," she said through tears, "dammit." The tears and topsoil stung lacerations she hadn't noticed until then, which just made her cry more. When she was as sick of crying as of running, she sat up in her no-longer-presentable uniform and sighed. "Dammit."

She looked out at the horizon between the trees. "This walk is really going to stink."

Ace didn't make it back to school that day; she was still on her way home when Brooke went to Twigitt. "So I talked to Ace. I was pretty sure she'd sabotaged the machine before, and she basically copped to it. She told me she doesn't want to turn back, ever."

"Okay!" said Twigitt.

"Okay?" asked Brooke.

"Brooke, science is defined by failure. Either our expectations fall through, and we find new ground, or all goes according to plan, and we fail to expand. Both carry the pain of defeat, and there are times the biggest surprise is which stings more. Miss Wolfhart's decision isn't optimal to my ends, but it's hers to make."

Brooke smiled for a moment in a contentment that was quickly shot by the next two words out of Twigitt's mouth. "That said!" Brooke rolled her eyes. Here we go. "It is a decision that opens unexpected doors! Namely - what if we could call up her old male self without affecting her body?"

"You mean, split her?"

"No - well, maybe, when I figure out how to do that, but I haven't, so no. More like a seance."

"Like a seance? Temporary, then?"

"Oh, very temporary. If everyone else in the room dropped dead at once, Ace would pop back to her new female self, neither body nor soul worse for wear!"

Brooke nodded. "She'll, er, like the sound of that."

Twigitt's were not the exact words Brooke would use when she pitched the idea to Ace the next day.

"No, of course not, but would you put it past her? Besides, didn't you say yourself he deserved it more than you?"

"You weren't meant to hear that," Ace said. "But if you did, you also heard me say he couldn't have it."

"And this way he can have his cake and eat it, um, can you! Twigitt made a point to tell me that there was no way he would stay in control without us actively facilitating. So this might be the best way to come to some sort of compromise."

"Compromise," Ace echoed back.

"Yes, compromise. He deserves it, you have it, and I hate to see this fester." She bit her lip. "Ace, if nothing else... humor me."

After a pause, Ace answered in a weak voice, "okay." And they both knew the conversation was over.

When the time came for the seance, Ace was, surprising no one, the last to arrive. Twigitt obviously had to be there, with her doohickey of eldritch magicks. Brooke of course was there as well, her girlfriend tagging along, as she'd told Brooke with a cheeky poke, "to keep you honest." Kade, too, had come, invited by Brooke, but he'd come alone. Jeffrey the gardener had also come, only because Twigitt had insisted on an even number, so that she could be directly across from Ace.

Ace did arrive, shaking as she entered the room. "Ace! Glad you could make it!" said Twigitt. "You can only call C.H. Fort so many times, you know?"

She crept to the table and sat down where Twigitt gestured. She sighed deeply as Kade sat down on her right, Brooke's girlfriend darting to the seat on her left. The imposing, masked gardener sat down on Kade's other side and extended his hand, which Kade took with a whimper. Ace took the hands of her neighbors as Brooke and her girlfriend clasped hands. Whispering incantations to her doohickey, Twigitt took the hands of Brooke and Jeffrey, completing the circle.

Ace jolted back in her chair, getting a death grip on her neighbor's hands, which was fortunate, since they'd have let go otherwise. When she lay back, Kade and Brooke's girl found they couldn't let go if they wanted to, nor even could they let go of their other neighbors. Her eyes opened, and it was apparent to all, though her body was unchanged, something was off, and they all knew what: she was not a "she" anymore.

"Ace? said Brooke.

"Sorta," said whoever was running Ace's body then.

"Boy-Ace?" she asked.

"Yeah... I've got the wheel. Feels... really weird."

There was a moment's silence.

"So tell us... what do you think of all this, Ace? Do you think the other you should get over herself?"

"No... not really. I mean, I sort of see where she's coming from," Ace said.

"You realize, in her own eyes, by her own language, she's trying to kill you?"

"I know, I know. But... I can hear her, and I remember her hearing me. Even if I deserve it more, she wants it more. I'm content to live through her, and she's not content to live through me. I can live with not living. She can't."

"You sure?" asked Kade.

"No," said Ace. "But I'd have to be sure to hurt her like it would to go back. More sure than to do it to my own me."

"You've been in her mind, you're still in her body - don't you think that's having an effect on your judgment?" asked Brooke.

"Probably. But that's always sort of the case, isn't it? No matter what effects I'm under, it'll always be something. I can only come from where I'm coming from."

Brooke sighed. "So that's it - you're just going to dive in for good?"

Ace shrugged. "I'll leave that up to her." After a few seconds of silence, Ace's hands began to tremble in existential dread. "Well... I guess that's it," he said. "I guess this is goodbye."

"Goodbye," said Brooke in a solemn tone.

"Goodbye," said Kade in a tone nearly as solemn, but with an undertone of excitement that escaped no one's notice.

"Goodbye!" Twigitt chirped.

"Goodbye," Brooke's girlfriend said with a slight laugh at Twigitt's demeanor.

Jeffrey grunted. At his grunt, Twigitt let go of his hand, breaking the circle and breaking her connection to the doohickey. Ace closed his eyes, and opened hers. She looked first at Kade, who looked back with bedroom eyes. With a slight snarl she violently broke his grip. She looked over at Brooke and Twigitt with a sad smile.

In her head, a wolf curled up and went to sleep.

Well, I must say, this seemed like a much better idea in 2012. But anyway... bombs away!

I've been working on a fanfic for a while, a fanfic about Skye. So far, a lot of it consists of the characters trying to figure out whether anything's wrong with her. It takes place before the events of Volume 3. I inserted some dashed lines for readability, if people don't like them I can remove them.

I might eventually build on it to create a really long fanfic, but for now it's only about 750 words long.

"I don't know. In our counseling session, she was very willing to be less, ah, public about her feelings for Cerise." Faith replied.

They were sitting in Callista's house, a very middle-class house with pale yellow wallpaper, in Callista's room. This was happening during the sunset of a hot summer day, when the house was starting to become a little hot, and the air conditioning had started to kick in. Faith and Callista were 17 and 18 years old, respectively, and became friends because they entered Artemis Academy at the same time, three years ago.

"But why did she bring her wolves to my party?" asked Callista.

"She said that she wanted to bring the most peaceful, cutest animal she could find," Skye said, "and she mistook a pack of violent hellhounds for peaceful, nonviolent wolves."

"Seriously?" asked Callista.

"Well, I checked with Sandi, and it seems wolves don't usually like to attack people," said Faith with a shrug.

Callista paused to gather her thoughts. She was a strong, tall woman, with long arms and a round, sincere face. Skye was a fifteen year old classmate with the power to control animals, who had crashed Callista's party, and stripped naked. After she had gotten dressed again she kissed Callista's girlfriend, and responded to Callista's suggestion that she stop by sending a pack of what they had thought were violent wolves straight towards the party-goers. The "wolves" hadn't managed to hurt anybody, because Faith used her enormous psychic powers to stop them.

-----------------------

"I don't believe that Skye would be unable to tell the difference between a violent, ravenous, animal, and her peaceful pets. Not even in the state that she was in back then," replied Callista.

"She was completely willing to stop with the threats, and was back to her normal, disney-princess sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice attitude when I last saw her," said Faith, "and I can't think of our Skye as being the same Skye who responded to the threat of an arrow to the face with calmness and a pack of hellhounds."

Callista had pointed her bow and arrow towards Skye just after she kissed Callista's girlfriend, Cerise, and just before Skye sent a pack of hellhounds towards innocent party-goers. Though nobody had really felt safe when the hellbeasts came, Skye had a reputation as the sweetest, nicest, most pleasant girl in Artemis Academy, and most of those who knew her still thought of her that way.

"I thought that only the most brazen monsters would fail to respond to the threat of a bullet to the face. But Skye didn't even flinch when I pointed my arrows towards her."

Faith grimaced at hearing that, for she had no answer to that. In her response to Callista's threat, Skye had acted as though she had been one of the monster's that Faith's parents hunted down and slaughtered, or at least as though she had had the training that Faith's parents had.

As Faith and Callista's conversation continued, Faith explained that Skye promised to avoid any further public disturbances to the peace, and Callista stopped voicing her growing belief that Skye was a very scary girl who was used to using violence as an answer.

Neither really knew what Skye felt at the time, or why she did what she did. Faith's psychic powers had, on the day of the party, revealed to her that Skye was feeling very aggressive at the time of the party. Her powers had also shown her that she wasn't emotionally concerned about the threat of wolves to the party-goers. Faith felt that her more recent readings on Skye's emotional state, from her counseling sessions, better predicted what Skye was likely to do than her readings from the party.

-----------------------

"She might have been temporarily brainwashed, her aura from back at the party was nothing like what her normal aura is," said Faith.

"With that kind of planning, and that super rehearsed line of action Skye took," thought Callista, "Not a chance in hell that was improvised. There's no way that some vampire with delusions of grandeur could have brainwashed her, not when even Faith had failed to send her into la-la-land with her powers."

"Sure, that makes sense," said Callista, with a small frown. She didn't know of anybody or anything that would particularly want to have Skye do what she did, and neither did Faith. In the end, Faith decided to wait and see what happens, while Callista was unable think of any way to protect either herself, or society from Skye.

-----------------------

Saturday June 30 2012 CE, at noon.
A year before Callista's very unfortunate birthday party:

“Elise, what are you doing?!” said Timothy, Elise's father. There was a black space cutting a vertical circle through the air of the forest. Inside that space was his daughter, Elise, and a huge bipedal beast, with glowing yellow eyes, and little spines running across its back.

“Please, walk through the rift,” said a pleading voice of uncertain origin. The beast looked like it was trying to lip-sync the voice, but its crushing jaws and its sleek, black and hairless skin made it clear to Timothy that it wasn't the voice's source.

“Could you, please daddy? This is important for your continued survival,” said Elise. She was fourteen years old, with blond, braided hair, and a square jaw.

“Get out of there his instant, before that thing,” Timothy stopped himself in mid-sentence. He didn't know what the risks of what Elise was doing were. And the beast, whatever it was doing, it wasn't harming Elise.

-----------------------

“Maybe I should step into the black abyss,” thought Timothy. “Maybe, there's somehow some kind of explanation for all of this, and my daughter has actually thought this through.”

“This isn't related to your new... friends is it?” asked Timothy.

“No!” said Elise.

Timothy hesitated, and while he was hesitating, someone threw a spear, piercing the flesh of the beast in the rift. The beast vanished almost immediately after the spear was thrown. Seeing a spear come from out of sight, Timothy ran into the black void, hoping that wherever it took him would be safer than here.

After he entered, the entrance to the blackness vanished. There was light in the space, otherwise he wouldn't be able to see himself or his daughter. There was a floor in that place, otherwise he and his daughter wouldn't be able to stand. Beyond that, he wasn't sure what was in here, or what created this space.

“Oh god no,” said Elise, her grey eyes opened wide.

“We'll pull through this,” said Timothy. “We've got to.”

Suddenly they were ejected from the space. In the dark space it seemed they fell downwards. However, in the forest they landed, they were initially moving parallel to the ground, with their body also parallel to it. Timothy landed face down, while Elise's braids landed in mud. Fortunately, it was a short drop, and Timothy had been successful in his attempt to protect himself from a broken nose.

“Mr. Bear is dead,” said Elise. “My brother is dead.”

“What?” said Timothy. “You don't have a brother.”

That shocked her, until she remembered why he said that.

“Right,” said Skye.

-----------------------

“Daddy erased his own memory to protect me and Mr. Bear from a mind-reading monster-hunter, of course he doesn't remember that he and his son aren't what the Abbott's consider as human,” thought Elise. “I have to be the adult now.”

“I'm going to change my name, alright? I'm Skye now.” said Skye.

“Whatever you say, Skye. Why have we been changing our names so much, anyways?” said Timothy.

“You erased your memories, check your notes,” said Skye, pointing to a briefcase that was conveniently to the side of where they landed.

“How did that get there, and why do you think that it's ours?” asked Timothy. “And what was the deal with that rift thing?”

“Mr. Bear was the one who configured the rift, they can do a bunch of weird things,” said Skye.

“Okay, then?” said Timothy, turning away. He started on the process of opening the backpack and retrieving his laptop.

Skye took a moment to consider her father's mental state. She did have extrasensory perception, and her particular brand of it allowed her to detect a variety of magical frequencies.

Timothy wasn't emitting any new magic. Therefore, Skye could assume that he wasn't being influenced by any magical spells which relied on their subject continuously absorbing magic.

-----------------------

“The memory-erasing spell on him is probably the last spell that was cast on him since I last saw him. Any further influence on his mind must have been through sudden jolts of magic/psychic energy, presumably just popularity enhancers,” thought Skye. “I hope that they didn't push him too hard.”

Skye started to cry at this point. Timothy, who had just started booted up his laptop, looked at her.

“What's wrong, Skye?” asked Timothy.

“You've been... You didn't... I need to be alone,” said Skye.

“I'll set up camp over there,” said Timothy, pointing at a level and clear part of the forest.

Skye walked away. Timothy didn't know whether she had heard him.

“She can find her way back,” thought Timothy. “I hope she was right that I'm the one whose memory was erased. If she's wrong, Skye might not acknowledge me as her father. I can't do anything to stop those vampires from controlling her, if they exist.”